W³P Lives: December 2023

Sunday, December 31, 2023

Trump Wishes Happy New Year to 'Crooked Joe Biden and His Group of Radical Left Misfits & Thugs'

You knew former President Donald Trump wouldn’t let New Year’s pass without trolling Joe Biden. On Saturday, he unleashed one of his signature social media posts broadsiding the embattled president, whose approval rating is so low you’d have to dig out the basement to find it:

As the New Year fast approaches, I would like to wish an early New Year’s salutation to Crooked Joe Biden and his group of Radical Left Misfits & Thugs on their never ending attempt to DESTROY OUR NATION through Lawfare, Invasion, and Rigging Elections. They are now scrambling to sign up as many of those millions of people they are illegally allowing into sour Country, in order that they will be ready to VOTE IN THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2024.

When Trump mentions “lawfare,” he is presumably referring to the myriad charges filed against him by the DOJ and even district attorneys in Georgia and Manhattan. The list of questionable, politically motivated prosecutions seems to grow daily.

The former president got some good news earlier this month regarding Special Counsel Jack Smith’s election interference case: SCOTUS will not expedite a ruling on the immunity question, which puts the March 4 court date coveted by Smith into doubt. March 4 is just one day before the crucial Super Tuesday primaries.

When he talks about “invasion,” Trump is obviously referring to the border crisis, where hundreds of thousands of illegals are crossing into our country monthly under the neglectful watch of Joe Biden. He posits that one reason the president is purposely asleep at the wheel is so he can create new Democrat voters. “[T]hey [the illegal immigrants] will be ready to VOTE IN THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2024,” he writes.

He's not wrong.

He also accuses Biden and the Dems of “Rigging Elections,” a hot-button issue that immediately gets leftists screaming “danger to democracy” whenever he mentions it. It’s hard to argue, however, that there aren’t many obvious attempts happening right now to affect the 2024 presidential election – starting with all the Democrat efforts to get Trump thrown off the ballot for a supposed 14th amendment violation for inciting an insurrection.

Problem is, he hasn’t been convicted of any such thing, so that’s a huge stretch and presumably, the Supreme Court will toss those efforts out within minutes of opening arguments.

If the election were held today, and Trump was the GOP nominee, he would stand a very good chance of beating Biden. Poll after poll shows him leading the mumbling, bumbling commander-in-chief. Since most polling often seems skewed toward Democrats, his lead may be even wider than what's being tallied.

One thing is for sure: it's going to be a heck of an interesting year.

Intellectual Froglegs – Year End Edition

Legend tells us that Alexander the Great gave his generals three final commands as he lay dying. #1 Only the best doctors should carry his coffin. #2 All of his wealth should be scattered during the funeral procession. #3 His arm and hand should remain unwrapped, hanging from his coffin and highly visible.

When questioned about those instructions the 33-year-old King of Macedonia and conqueror of Achaemenid Persia explained his three reasons. First, every soul should know that even the best doctors of Kings cannot defeat death. Second, the riches we accumulate mean nothing, they remain of no value as we leave. Third, and most importantly, our hands leave this life as empty they came in, with truest treasure being time.

Alexander’s final orders are an apt reminder to each live our best life. The moments we create with our time are the value of life.

Comrades, the rebellious messenger Joe Dan Gorman has transmitted again in a coded frequency only receivable by patriots with a funny bone. The secret message uses humor thereby ensuring communists and leftists, aka ‘democrats’, are incapable of receiving or deciphering it.

The subversive end of year transmission comes from deep in the underground bunker of the Rebel Alliance. Pull out those super-secret decoder rings, smile and enjoy the broadcast moment before the deep state satellite interception trucks show up on your driveway…

[Direct Rumble Link] – [Website Here]

X22, On the Fringe, and more- December 31

Thank you to everyone who stuck by me this year! It wasn't a easy year, but next year hopefully looks to be easier.

Enjoy 1 last round of podcasts for this year, and don't miss my New Year's party thread that will launch at midnight! 🎉

Bidenomics Bogus Will Unravel In 2024

The lies from Biden and the press will come fast & furious in the coming months as the false promises of “Bidenomics” become more apparent.

by Matthew Boose for American Greatness

Joe Biden has a New Year’s resolution for the media: “Start reporting the right way” on the economy.

You would never guess from Biden’s admonition that news coverage of “Bidenomics” has been overwhelmingly positive—in fact, borderline sycophantic.

What Biden was upset about was the media noticing—with a patronizing glance—that voters are unhappy. And unfortunately for Biden, that’s just a fact.

Perhaps Biden can draw on his reserves of “decency” and “empathy” to put himself in the shoes of his subjects.

The average American doesn’t have a vacation home on the beach or a six-figure job that only requires a 30% attendance rate. The average American definitely doesn’t have a cadre of powerful cheerleaders to cover their mistakes when they screw up or millions of dollars from shady international business dealings.

The average American is living beyond their means to insulate themselves from the chaos of modern America.

The average American is wondering when prohibitive home prices and mortgage rates will begin to fall so they or their children can take the next step in life. The average American is competing with foreign laborers, who, thanks to Biden, are now pouring in at record rates to find work and stay off the streets. The average American senses the American dream is dying, and they know Biden isn’t making it any better.

Against this crushing reality, the Biden administration and its regime toadies have created pleasing fictions.

The press is full of breathless reports of the dawning prosperity that lies ahead. They say there is a thing called a “soft landing”—doesn’t that sound awfully nice?—which no one can define with any satisfaction—that is coming our way very shortly. The bad times of inflation will be over, and there will be no recession either—just in time for the election!

Gee! What are the odds?

The economy is not a collection of models and charts. The word economy is derived from Greek “oikos,” for household. The economy is about people. When regular people think the economy stinks, it probably does.

Everyone remembers how much better the Trump economy was. Prices have risen astronomically since then, and wages have not kept pace. More and more Americans are taking on a side hustle, burning through savings, racking up credit card debt, or raiding their retirement accounts to keep their heads above water.

That is the reality. The stuff about “Bidenomics” is propaganda.

Why, then, hasn’t consumer spending slowed down?

One answer is that the real pain hasn’t hit yet. This is not Weimar Germany, however striking the parallels may seem.

Another is that people like to buy things—to cope with stress or to show love to people they care about—even if they can’t really afford them. It isn’t wise, but it’s human nature.

Nobody, least of all the economic wizards who said inflation would be “transitory,” knows what 2024 will bring.

The best-case scenario, according to the wizards, is the so-called soft landing, which really means economic contraction. Everything will still be expensive, and there will be fewer jobs, but it won’t technically be a recession.

Some credible experts believe that a huge crash is ahead.

When the rest of the “experts” are predicting sunshine and rainbows, it pays to heed a pessimist.

More and more Americans feel like the country has no future because, increasingly, it doesn’t have one.

Our criminally negligent leaders are focused on their own self-preservation at the cost of the country and its welfare. Nobody represents the corruption of this class quite so well as Biden.

The economy poses a serious threat to Biden’s re-election, so it’s not surprising that he is upset by the media’s failure to deceive the people—or rather, the people’s failure to be deceived.

The lies coming from Biden and the press will come fast and furious in the coming months as the false promises of “Bidenomics” become more apparent.

Benedict Would Have Banned Same-Sex Blessings, Aide Says on Anniversary

The Vatican marked the first anniversary on Sunday of the death of Pope Benedict XVI, with one of his closest aides saying he never would have approved a recent declaration allowing Catholic priests to bless same-sex couples.

Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, who was the Church's doctrinal chief under Benedict, and Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, who was Benedict's private secretary, both German, were two headliners at an event marking the anniversary and organized by the conservative U.S.-based Catholic television network EWTN.

"It never would have happened (under Benedict) because it was so ambiguous," Mueller said on the sidelines of the event when asked by Reuters about the landmark declaration issued on Dec. 18.

While the December declaration says such blessings cannot resemble the sacrament of matrimony between a man and a woman and cannot be part of rituals or liturgies, some advocates of more inclusion of LGBT people saw it as a possible precursor of same-sex marriage in the Church.

"There is no homosexual matrimony. It does not exist, it cannot exist, despite ideologies we have (today)," said Mueller, whom Francis removed as head of the Vatican's doctrinal department after Benedict resigned in 2013.

Francis briefly noted the anniversary in his Sunday blessing to crowds in St. Peter's Square, saying Benedict had "served the Church with love and wisdom" and that he "We feel so much affection, so much gratitude, so much admiration for him."

Francis then asked the crowd for a round of applause for Benedict, who was the first pope in 700 years to step down instead of rule for life.

Mueller said that while his personal relationship with Francis is "very good" he does not hesitate to disagree with him in public on doctrinal issues because "we are not in the Soviet Union where only one leader has a say."

Mueller said "the best thing we can do for the pope is always to be close to the Catholic truth and faith and not to be here as adulators."

Earlier in St. Peter's Basilica, Gaenswein, Benedict's secretary, said a memorial Mass for Benedict. Gaenswein's voice broke twice with emotion while reading his homily.

Benedict's shock resignation divided the Church, with many saying he should not have stepped down.

His 10 years living in the Vatican as "pope emeritus" widened the conservative-progressive divide, with some diehard traditionalists not recognizing Francis as leader.

"I think many polemics will be forgotten," Gaenswein said on the sidelines of the television event. "What remains is the substance, and (as for) the substance of his papacy, history will judge."

Gaenswein, who Francis dispatched back to Germany after Benedict died, said that when Benedict decided to resign, the former pope was convinced he had at most a year left to live.

"I pray he will be a saint. I wish he will be a saint. And I am convinced he will be a saint," he said.

https://www.newsmax.com/world/globaltalk/pope-benedict-same/2023/12/31/id/1147734/

Our Awakening Terrifies the Left

posted by John Green at American Thinker

As every parent knows: you figure out which child broke mom’s favorite vase by how the kids behave, not what they say. Despite their protestations to the contrary, aren’t the Dems behaving as if they’re guilty?

Don’t misunderstand -- I don’t for one nanosecond believe that we will be hearing any cell doors slamming on our leftist army of miscreants. However, said miscreants are clearly acting as if their future is considerably less bright than it seemed in 2021.

Hunter Biden has defied a congressional subpoena, because apparently committing a felony is easier than refusing to self-incriminate. Maybe his law degree didn’t cover the 5^th Amendment. Let me explain it to the guy with the Yale law degree: You don’t have to talk, but you do have to show up.

Hunter also declared that he will leave the country if Donald Trump is elected next year. He seems to think it will be impossible for him to get a fair trial under a Trump DoJ. His declaration sounded a lot like one of those temper tantrum threats from celebrities -- that they’ll deny us their glorious presence if we don’t elect their preferred Marxist. But in Hunter’s case, it’s actually something much more legally significant -- a public announcement that he’s a flight risk. That is very unwise behavior for someone under indictment.

Special Counsel Jack Smith has asked the Supreme Court to verify that Joe Biden can be prosecuted after leaving office, for any crimes that he committed while President. You know, something like obstruction of justice for telling his kid to defy a subpoena -- as Karine Jean-Pierre reports he did.

Yes, I know: Jack’s brief to the Supreme Court names Donald Trump and not Joe Biden, but he seems to have missed the fact that a court decision on the matter will apply to Joe too. That’s what happens when you’re playing checkers rather than chess -- where you have to take your jumps even if they cost you the game. Of course, it may just be that a Harvard law degree doesn’t provide any better understanding of the law than a Yale degree does.

The White House communications spin cycle is making everyone dizzy as they attempt to launder the Biden dirty evidence.

Joe Biden never talked to Hunter about his business dealings.
Make that: He never talked to Hunter’s business associates.
Make that: He never went into business with Hunter or his associates.
Make that: He never took any money from any of them.
Make that: He never did anything for the money.
Certainly, he used his position as Vice President to get a Ukrainian prosecutor fired who was investigating Burisma -- the company that paid the Bidens millions. But we like Ukrainians now so that’s okay -- right?

The Dems spent two years claiming there’s no evidence of Biden corruption. Now they’re saying there’s no “direct” evidence of Biden corruption. Direct evidence being a cancelled check with “Bribe to Joe Biden for services rendered” written in the memo line, and drawn against a Burisma account. Without that proof, the Dems claim this is all a political witch hunt, distracting Joe from doing the people’s work of surrendering to goat herders, equipping the Ukrainian military, and ceding our airspace to Chinese balloons.

The MSM is doing more stories about Republicans “pouncing” than about what they’re pouncing on. They’re claiming that Republicans are cheapening impeachment by making it about politics. While they’re trying to sell that whopper, there’s the little issue that Trump was impeached twice -- not based on crimes, but on disagreements. One of those impeachments was done after he was voted out of office, just so San Fran Nan could give him the finger on his way out -- like the good sport she is. But sure, the Republicans are cheapening impeachment.

Virtually the entire Democrat establishment is begging Joe to bow out of the next election. They claim it’s not because he’s a crook, but because he’s getting old. Apparently, it’s far better to be known as the party whose best is a demented old fool who was never qualified, than the crime syndicate that used a tool who’d sign anything they needed to steal America blind.

Why is everyone on the Left acting so squirrelly? I don’t believe for a minute that:

Hunter Biden will spend a day in jail,
Joe Biden will be removed from office by any means other than a horde of angry voters,
The DoJ will suddenly realize that they’re sworn to defend rather than destroy the Constitution, or
The MSM will have a sudden epiphany that narratives without credibility are received as bold-faced lies.

None of the guilty are likely to face any legal peril -- our criminal justice system is much too broken for actual justice. They’re facing something much worse -- a risk to their power. The jig is up because the mark is onto the con. There will be no token sacrifice of a few useful idiots who have become unuseful -- as they claim to have remediated the problem and continue the game. They are acting desperate because they know the awfulness of the Biden administration is awakening Americans to the fact that the whole leftist movement is corrupt from the ground up. Our emerging awareness is making the return of a disrupter like Trump a political imperative. That terrifies the Left -- as we see in their behavior.

Déjà Vu All Over Again: Biden Gets Leveled by His Own Words to Jimmy Carter About Running for Reelection

Joe Biden is not a man who likes to face reality or to be challenged.

We saw that again when he was asked about the economy and got snippy with a reporter, scolding him to "Start reporting it the right way."

Biden Gets Snippy With Reporter Who Dares to Ask Him About Economy

As I noted, the translation for that is that you guys are supposed to be pumping out my talking points, the way I want them reported, not questioning me.

However, inflation, debt, and high interest rates aren't good for the American people, and snippy comments aren't going to change that.

There are not only those issues with the economy but his polls are in the basement, with people believing he isn't up to the job. That's a hard thing to overcome, as he isn't going to get any younger or more coherent.

Democrats Panic Ahead of 2024 As Biden’s Polling Numbers Hit Basement Level

It's why folks like James Carville and David Axelrod were suggesting that Biden step aside and let someone else run. Biden's response? Reportedly to call Axelrod a pr**k and not take his advice. Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) threw down over the issue, telling Carville to "shut the f**k up" about Biden stepping aside.

Now, Biden's own words about Jimmy Carter back in the 1980 race are coming back to bite him, as they seem to eerily mirror his own situation now.

'That man's in trouble, politically in trouble,' Biden said at the time, according to comments found in the Wilmington Evening Journal.
The U.S. senator from Delaware expressed that he was holding off endorsing Carter because he wanted to back a candidate who could retain the White House for the Democrats in 1980.
'I'm not certain that's Jimmy Carter right now,' Biden told his local paper.

Why? The bad inflation that Carter seemed clueless about. And Carter wasn't even trying to sell us the nonsense that Biden has been doing--about how everything is actually good, just believe him. Biden criticized Carter over inflation.

'The spiraling costs of inflation are ripping into the fabric of American society,' Biden said in a full-page ad placed in the Wilmington Morning News in October 1978, weeks before the midterm elections. 'We must bring these problems under control and the first place to start is with the cost of government.'
Biden was also publicly critical of Carter's staff. [...]
'The president is learning, but not fast enough,' Biden said in October 1977 at a Delaware State Chamber of Commerce dinner, according to the Wilmington Morning News. 'Everything was important to his neophyte staff and therefore nothing was important.'

Yet Biden himself contributed to more spending, which many now believe to be responsible for making inflation worse.

Biden also knocked Carter for the "amateurish" way he reshuffled his cabinet in 1979, as well as how he was dealing with splintered coalitions.

'I think that's part of Jimmy Carter's problem,' Biden said in February 1979, according to the Wilmington News Journal. 'You've got to learn how to deal with the Bella Abzugs.'

Biden has brought more division than Carter ever did, demonizing millions of political opponents on the right and antagonizing the people on the left even as he kowtows to them.

Biden eventually was forced to come around and sign aboard as supporting Carter because the Democrats were going with Carter despite all the problems.

'Let's face it, Jimmy Carter is not the finest thing since wheat cakes; he's not the second coming,' Biden said in April 1980, according to the Wilmington Morning News. 'But he is doing a good job.'

Then Carter got absolutely decimated by Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Déjà vu all over again? Let us hope.

Biden Tries to Slip New Eco Regs Targeting Fridges, Freezers Past Us on Holiday Weekend

If there was no other reason -- and there are plenty -- not to vote for Joe Biden, the fact that his administration has opened the door to more and more governmental control would be a great one.

Climate change is a big excuse to make all kinds of societal transformative change and control our actions--not to mention, destroying or building up industries with those controls and restrictions. Coal and oil are bad, electrical vehicles (except those from that evil Elon Musk) are good. Government shouldn't be in the business of picking winners and losers, yet that's what they doing with their attempts at control.

But it looks like they'd rather we not pay attention to what they're trying to do. Perhaps that might explain announcing new regulations about refrigerators and freezers on Friday, as we head into the holiday weekend. They also announced proposed standards for commercial fans and blowers.

Overall, the agency said the actions would eliminate 420 million metric tons of "dangerous carbon dioxide emissions" over the next three decades and save households and businesses $5 billion a year on utility bills.
"Today’s announcement is a testament to the Biden-Harris Administration's commitment to lowering utility costs for working families, which is helping to simultaneously strengthen energy independence and combat the climate crisis," Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement.

The updated standards will start being implemented between 2029 and 2030, and will follow the lead of similar versions in California. Oh, great. Following what Democrats do in California is a recipe for failure, While Granholm claims that this will lower utility costs, this move will take cheaper models off the market which will impact the people who can't afford to pay more.

Ben Lieberman, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, blasted the move.

Consumers are perfectly capable of making these decisions on their own, including consumers who want to buy extra efficient refrigerators or other models. What these standards do is they force that choice on everyone, whether it makes sense for them or not. And we know from history that, in some cases, these standards raise the upfront cost more than you're likely to earn back in the form of energy savings."

He warned not only are these standards likely going to make things cost more but that they could also impact performance, pointing to the new standards for dishwashers making them take twice as long to finish. He believes the standards for gas stoves that were proposed in February would result in an effective ban on half of the gas stoves on the market.

The Biden team proposed or finalized 30 such regulations in 2023 and plans on more in 2024.

In the months after DOE released its proposed stovetop regulations, it proposed regulations in February for clothes washers and refrigerators that it said would reduce emissions by 233 million metric tons; finalized standards for air conditioners in March; proposed regulations cracking down on dishwashers in May; issued a proposal targeting water heaters in July; and proposed standards for furnaces in September.

Is there anything they don't want to control? It doesn't look like it.

"They are trying to reshape the place that you live to make it look like the home they would like you to live in," O.H. Skinner, the Alliance For Consumers' executive director, told Fox News Digital in October. "They're really trying to impose what are progressive preferences from places in coastal enclaves and make it so that everyone has to live like that. And that affects you every day."
"What's crucial is to understand this administration isn't just tweaking regulations. They're doing things that effectively ban whole categories of things that exist on the market," Skinner continued. "Almost all of these decisions, as you work through it, are influenced by the overall climate agenda and the green agenda and the desire for us to change our lives."

And yet, they don't want to change their own lives, even as they want to control yours.

Kamala Harris posted a picture of what she was supposedly cooking for Christmas dinner. She cropped out the gas stove, but you could still see a little of it. They want to dictate the rules for you and me, but not for themselves.

Kamala Posts Another One That Gets Blasted on Social Media

Maybe it's just me, but I don't believe that Kamala can make a Beef Wellington.

Muslim Leaders in Swing States Go National With Effort vs. Biden in 2024 Election

On Saturday, a coalition of Muslim leaders in swing states announced they are stepping up their efforts to make sure Joe Biden (assuming he's the Democrat candidate, which is anything but certain) loses the 2024 presidential election. Why? Because he supports Israel.

The #AbandonBiden campaign officially began earlier in December, led by Muslim leaders in swing states like Michigan, Minnesota and Arizona, who disapproved of Biden’s support for Israel’s counterattacks against Hamas. The counterattacks have come at the cost of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian lives.
Now, the coalition intends to expand the pressure campaign to all 50 states.
“We will save America from itself, by punishing Biden at the ballot box,” said lead organizer Jaylani Hussein in a statement.

Self-awareness rating: Zero.

Honestly, the chutzpah of these people (yes, my use of a Yiddish term was deliberate) thinking that they could "save America from itself." Plenty of Americans feel differently, including your humble correspondent; honestly, the least of the current GOP field would be preferable to another term of Joe Biden, or even one term of his understudy.

The group isn't completely obtuse; they do understand our two-party system, and that their efforts may well help elect a GOP candidate.

“There is a likelihood that our votes may weaken the Democrats that the Republicans may win,” Hussein said. “We’re not fools about that.”
The #AbandonBiden campaign is willing to take that risk, he said: “We will risk an unknown four years of Trump.”

You've likely heard the phrase, "Politics make strange bedfellows." The idea that a Muslim activist group may well campaign to help Donald Trump regain the White House - or to see Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley elected - well, those are strange bedfellows indeed. Not only are the #AbandonBiden campaign members working in unintentional alliance with the GOP, but they are also adding to the woes of Democrats, who are already worried about third-party challenges to the incumbent.

What's interesting about this is, that by most standards, President Biden's support for Israel has been rather tepid. The Biden Administration has repeatedly cautioned Israel to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza (Israel's Hamas foes show no such compunctions) but, on the other hand, Biden has side-stepped Congress to send $147 million in military support to Israel.

President Biden, while he is favored to be the Democratic nominee at the moment, has grown visibly weaker and more befuddled in recent months. RealClearPolling, the survey arm of RealClearPolitics, at present, shows Joe Biden polling behind all three of the top GOP candidates in the averages of recent polls (although in the case of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the lead is very narrow:)

Any third-party candidate that the #AbandonBiden campaign is likely to throw their support behind will only tip the odds further in favor of whomever the Republican candidate ends up being. Given the likely outcome of their efforts, all I can say to the #AbandonBiden campaign is, "Bravo! Keep up the good work, and may your efforts bear fruit!"

Tens of Thousands of Apparatchiks in DC Apoplectic That Trump Might Fire Them

Sundance reporting for Conservative Treehouse

This op-ed published in Politico is intended to sound the alarm about President Donald Trump fundamentally destroying the system of career civil service agents (apparatchiks) in Washington DC, and it’s also a little funny.

I mean, if you built an echo-chamber ideological in magnitude and scale, then self-isolated inside the DC beltway barrier, this would be exactly the type of alarm to follow.

POLITICO – […] President Donald Trump’s sweeping proposal to convert thousands of career civil servants into political appointees if he wins a second term in the White House. That plan — which has won the support of powerful, Trump-aligned conservative think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the America First Policy Institute — is modeled on an executive order from Trump’s first term that redesignated 20,000 civil servants in policy-related positions as “Schedule F” employees, thereby allowing them to be fired unilaterally by the president.

[…] Americans should not underestimate the damage that the reforms would do to the federal government’s ability to deliver basic services in a timely and efficient manner. “At the end of the day, it’s intuitive,” he said. “If you are selecting people on the basis of their political persuasion or their loyalty as opposed to their expertise and their commitment to the public good, you’re going to wind up with less good service and more risk for the American people.” (MORE)

Apparently, Mr. Max Stier has misread the room.

Dear, DC Career Civil Servants,

FU!

Warmest regards,

America